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| Photography by Jonathan Hsu |
One of our senior dance and movement studies majors, Maggie
Vail, had the opportunity to work as an administrative intern for Bates Dance
Festival this past summer. BDF is a festival hosted by Bates College in Lewiston,
Maine, that emphasizes dance’s power to change the world around us. This summer
program, at which Maggie both interned and attended, is a six-week series of
classes, lectures, exhibits, and the creation and performance of dance works by
many featured artists. She had many duties as an intern, including being a liaison
between the festival and the Bates College housing office and managing the
Young Choreographer’s Showcase. Maggie is finishing her Arts Management
concentration from Goizueta Business School this year, and speaks about how the
Emory Dance faculty have helped her pursue her goals as a dancer. Read on for
more about her experiences.
*Responses have been edited
for length and clarity
Describe your position and
responsibilities with your BDF internship this past summer.
My specific duty as an administrative intern was to liaison
between the festival and the Bates College housing office. I arrived a
week before the start of the festival to pick up keys from the conferences and
campus events manager, and organize them to be distributed to festival
attendees. We would have visiting artists rotate weekly, so I coordinated with
the dance company departing to ensure a smooth transition between companies coming
and going.
My other job was to manage the Young Choreographer's showcase
at the end of the festival. Students in the Professional Training Program (the
last three weeks of the festival) have a chance to choreograph for an informal
public showcase and have their work adjudicated by festival artists. I
coordinated with the selected choreographers, the tech/production team, and
social media interns to market the show.
What are some of the
skills/insights you took away from this experience?
The festival really values their interns and makes sure that they
are acquiring valuable skills rather than pushing paper or fetching coffee.
Immersing myself in the operations of the festival let me experience fundraising,
marketing, and logistics first-hand. My supervisors had the office interns
look at materials from past seasons (press kits, grants, etc.) as a
learning resource. The biggest insight I took from this experience is that I am
so thankful and appreciative for the festival and the people behind it. It
takes a lot of passion and drive to run an arts organization, especially at
this present time. People are working hard to advocate for dance and the arts,
but we need to keep working!
How has your concentration
in arts management affected your pursuits in dance?
Immediately diving into the Emory Dance Program during my freshman
year has given me a holistic perspective of the field of dance. My sophomore
year, Full Radius Dance offered me a semester long internship, where I was
introduced to arts administration. I then assisted the Stephen Petronio Company
in New York with their digital archives the past two summers, after my
acceptance into the Arts Management program at Emory's Goizueta Business
School, and most recently attained this internship. It is all thanks to the
Emory Dance faculty and the department as a whole for supporting my passion for
administrative work. I am planning to pursue a professional dance career after
graduation, but my long-term aspiration is to have a career in arts
administration.
What were some of your favorite movement courses you took while at
BDF and what did you take away from them?
During the Professional Training Program, interns worked in the
office two periods and took two classes, rather than taking four classes like
the other students. My first class was Modern V with Claudia Lavista, and I ended
the day with Shakia Johnson's Hip-Hop Repertory class.
Being placed in the most advanced level of modern, I was very
intimidated taking class with some of the most talented dancers at the festival. Claudia's
class played with the ideas of body connectivity and fluidity to make
movement the most efficient. In order to grasp those ideas, we mainly did floor
work. I came out of those three weeks with more release and fluidity in my
movement, and therefore, stronger. I continue to work on the exercises at
school!
What were some of your most
memorable experiences with BDF?
The people. I reunited with some friends from the festival or
other intensives, and made a ton of new friends. Competition is not a priority
at Bates Dance Festival; we support and encourage each other because we
share a common love for dance and the festival. The artists are also super
friendly and welcoming. At the very end of the festival when only the staff,
video, and office interns were around, all of us went out to dinner.
We reflected on the season, laughed, and it was an amazing way to spend my
last moments at Bates with people I truly cherish.
During the final week of the Young Dancers Workshop, two of the
youngest dancers in the program created a work for the informal showing, but halfway
through their piece the music unexpectedly cut out. Shocked and scared, these
girls stood still. The musicians started to sing the melody, the other 90
people in the room joined in on the song, and the girls continued their dance
to the end. That loving, encouraging spirit best expresses the community and
family created at the Bates Dance Festival.
Thank you Maggie!
Find out more about Bates Dance Festival here!
For more information on our Fall dance events please check
out our calendar here or follow us on our
Facebook page!
